The Nobel Peace Prize has recently gone for sustainable development work, honoring Wangari Maathai and Muhammad Yunus, with the IAEA sandwiched in between. Unfortunately, I really don't know any grassroots activists who might come up in that vein this year. Al Gore could win in the wake of Live Earth and An Inconvenient Truth, but I suspect the committee will put that off until after the presidential election. They could try for the "Save Our Selves" umbrella group, or perhaps Gro Harlem Brundtland. In the dissident category, we have Morgan Tsvangirai. I think the Karabakh conflict actually needs to be resolved before the negotiators involved in that win anything.

UPDATE: Actually, the more I think about it, the more I think Peace has to go to Tsvangirai this year. Anything else can wait.

UPDATE: In further thinking about the Literature prize, I followed this Literary Saloon thread to Croaking Marley, who also correctly predicted Pamuk's 2006 award. He lists David Grossman, who is probably a more likely Israeli winner than A.B. Yehoshua, as well as the choice most directly related to current events. In the course of his thoughts, however, he also suggests that we're due for a poet, a woman, and an Asian. You could get two of the three with Ko Un, though we're more due for a Latin American writer than an East Asian. I'm sticking with my Achebe guess, though. Pablo Neruda eventually won.

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About Me

I am an Associate Professor in History at Shippensburg University, where I teach courses in Middle Eastern and world history. My two major research areas are the Middle East from the 7th through 10th centuries and the Persian Gulf from ancient times to the present. Nothing on this site represents an official position of Shippensburg University.